She's born in Bucovina, on the 4th of June 1982 in Fălticeni (RO, jud : Suceava) not far from the Moldova river. When she was 3 her father died. She had quite a hard childhood. She has two sisters which are 3 and 8 years older and she has a good relationship with them and her mother. When she was 7 she went to Deva to train in what is probably the best gymnastic school in the world. She's 1.63 m high for 48 kg.
She likes animals and she likes Italy. She even can speak some italian.
As she was too young she couldn't participate to the 96 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and to the 97 World Championships in Lausanne. She appeared at the Gander Memorial in Montreux the 1st of November 97 and other Meetings (esp. in France, in U.K., in the USA and in Italy) where she clearly showed that she will be a protagonist of next years Gymnastic competitions. She also competed in Italy in a regional meetings with Fano as foreign member in 96. She already won a big international fame as a junior gymnast. Besides gymnastic she likes tennis, skating and swimming. She now has a cat (a siamese).
She likes surprises so don't hesitate to mail her (but keep in mind that she speaks romanian :-)
The source of all the information in this page is Maria Olaru herself and mine. Clearly all inexact information  is only my fault.

You can get more informations on that Wonderful Athlete here .
 

You're welcome to send her your best wishes personnaly at the following address :
 
 

If you have new pictures that you want to appear on these pages or recent information, you're pleased to mail them to me
 

September 2000
Olympic games in sidney. The Romanian team shows that Deva is still one of the better gymnastic school in the world. The 2000 romanian team (Andreea Raducan, Simona Amanar, Maria Olaru, Boboc Loredana, Claudia Presacan, Isarescu Andreea : How couldn't they win ?:-) won the team competition. The All Around competition has seen three romanian gymnasts in the first three ranks (1st Andreea Raducan (38.893), 2nd Simona Amanar (38.642), 3rd Maria Olaru (38.581)). What a great success !
 

October 99
At the TianJin World Championships, Maria showed her talent and regularity. She's now the AA world champion.

November 98

After having spent some time in Italy (at Porto San Giorgio) and in Spain (in Madrid), the romanian team returned in Deva in their new sport Hall, which seems to be great. The 30th of September Maria had a knee injury and had to keep a splint for three weeks. She had to go for a check up in Bucharest and maybe she must have an operation. Because of that injury she missed the four last meetings in Iceland, Germany, England and Japan. She also had to stay two weeks in hospital for her knee. But anyway she's now decided to work as hard as possible to recover and to come again soon back to competition. She will probably need a protection for her knee, but it doesn't seem to be easy to find that item in Deva.

August 98

This Month there are some good news from Deva. They will have their Gymnastic Hall renewed so that they will have good training conditions.
Meanwhile they will spend some time in Italy and next maybe in Spain for cantonment.
More particularly Maria thanks all the visitors of this page and wish them all of good. She still wait for your letters so don't hesitate she will be happy even if you write to her in english. She will surely give you an answer :  it takes about 10 days for mail to travel from Romania to USA and about 5 to 7 days to Europe.

Next important competition this month is The Goodwill Games in New York from 19 to 26 July.  Results :

Women's All-Around Competition (vault, u.bars, beam, floor, total) 19 July
2. Maria Olaru (ROM)   9.550 VT,  9.550 UB,   9.625 BB,  9.250 FX,  37.975 AA

Here's the Cetate coverage concerning Maria by Brian Mulligan :

Q: You had strong performances on the parallel bars and the balance beam…what happened on the floor?
A: " After the uneven bars and the beam, I was too relaxed and very confident, the floor and the vault are the best apparatus for me, I was over confident and I paid. I learned that one event can make a difference."
Q: Will you be doing anything different in the individual events?
A: "I hope to be in the finals on the vault and the floor."
Q: Was jet lag a problem?
A: " Yes, this is a problem, not only for us…I woke up 4 or 5 times during the night because now in Romania it is 7 hours ahead. We need a few days to adjust to the difference in time and we arrived two days ago, and it was not enough time."

Women's Vault Final on Tuesday the 21st of July (6th in the start list)

4   Maria Olaru              ROM  9.575

Short extract from Romanian Gymnastic Live!

She took part to the European Championships in St-Petersburg but she had some back problems and couldn't participate all competitions. She ranked
1st in the Team competition and 2nd with Simona Amanar at the Vault

European Womens Championships Birmingham 16-19 May 1996 : 1st VT (9.687)
Top Gym Junior Tournament Charleroi (BE) 19-20 October 1996 : 1st AA (38.451 : 9.800 VT, 9.188 UB, 9.725 BB, 9.738 FX)
International Team Championships Cincinnati 22 March 1997 : 1st Team (2nd VT 9.500, 1st UB 9.000, 2nd BB 9.350, 2nd FX 9.650)
Spain vs Romania 24 May 1997 : 1st AA (with 37.575 points)
Junior Olympics Lisbona 19-22 July 1997 : 2nd VT (9.475), 3rd BB (9.575), 1st FX (9.675)
International Junior Championships Yokohama 14-15 September 1997 : 1st AA (38.175 : 9.525 VT, 9.700 UB, 9.275 BB, 9.675 FX), 1st FX 9.650
Glasgow Gran Prix 24-26 October 1997 : 3rd VT (9.325)
Gander Memorial in Montreux (Switzerland) the 1st of November 1997 : 3rd AA
Trophée Massilia (FR)Marseille 28-30 November 1997 : 1st Team, 1st FX (9.775), 6th BB (9.338)
VISA American Cup, Fort Worth 5-8 March 1998 : 5th AA (36.911 : 9.450 VT, 8.687 UB, 9.312 BB, 9.512 FX)
International Team Championships, Knoxville (USA:TN) 28 March 1998 : Team (2nd), 3rd AA (37.887 : 9.712 VT(1), 9.650 UB(7), 8.925 BB(11), 9.600 FX(3))
International Championships of Romania, Ploieşti 10-12 April 1998 : 2nd AA (38.200), 1st VT (9.750)
European Championships, St-Petersburg 30 apr-03 Mai 1998 : 1st team, 2nd VT (9.543)
Goodwill Games , New York 19-26 July 1998 : 2nd AA (37.975) ,4th VT (9.575)
Tianjin World Championship,October 1999 : 5th VT (9.656), 7th UB(9.637), 4th BB (9.712), 4th FX(9.787), 1st AA (38.792)

Olympic Games 2000, Sidney September 2000, 1st Team (154.608) 19 Sep, 3rd AA (38.581) 21 Sep, 6th BB (9.700)  25 Sep,
 

AA: All Around
FX: Floor
UB: Uneven Bars
BB: Beam
VT: Vault

where MFM stands for : Massage, Fisiotherapy and Medical Analysis

Follow the link  To the Maria Olaru Portrait Gallery  for more pictures.To view full size right click on the image and select view image (Unless otherwise noted all the pictures were taken by myself at the Montreux Gander Memorial 1997 edition)